Sheriff commits $1 million to public safety complex

Friday

Nantucket County Sheriff Richard Bretschneider has been fined by the State Ethics Commission for violating the Massachusetts conflict of interest law.

The ethics commission ruled that Bretschneider used his position of authority to further his personal interest in purchasing shares of a property on Cherry Street. The commission found that Bretschneider – wearing his sheriff’s uniform – repeatedly approached a woman who owned a share of the property, and gained confidential information about her financial difficulties through his duties as sheriff when he served her with an eviction notice.

The investigation by the ethics commission was prompted by a February 2006 story published in The Inquirer and Mirror which detailed Bretschneider’s pursuit of the Cherry Street property through an entity known as Yumbob Realty Trust, which he controls (Click here for story).

Bretschneider has already paid the $1,500 fine, and offered few comments this week about the investigation by the ethics commission.

“They made a ruling, I paid the fine and I’ve moved on,” Bretschneider said. “We didn’t agree with the finding, but they made a finding and I’ve paid the fine. You move on and you don’t make the same mistake twice.”

The ethics commission can only impose a maximum fine of $2,000 per violation of the conflict of interest law, although it is currently pursuing legislation that would raise the maximum penalty to $10,000.

“This disposition agreement is a negotiated settlement,” said ethics commission spokesperson Carol Carson. “The commission receives about 1,000 complaints per year, and a great many are resolved confidentially. There’s usually about 20 to 35 cases that are resolved publicly and listed on our website.”

The property at 3 Cherry St. was recently inherited by the 10 grandchildren of Manny and Isabel Mendes, Cape Verdean immigrants from the island of Fogo. As the family struggled to decide what to do with the property, Bretschneider began buying out individual family members one by one in a series of questionable deals.

Since May 2005, an entity known as Yumbob Realty Trust, which Bretschneider said was established for the benefit of his children, has purchased four shares of the property at 3 Cherry Street for a total of $180,000. The shares were acquired over a span of seven months, from May to December of 2005, according to Registry of Deeds records.

The four family members who have sold their shares to the trust, Marlene Devine, Denise Gomes, Gary Gomes and Diane Spinola, said Bretschneider brokered the series of deals by repeatedly approaching them in his Nantucket County Sheriff’s vehicle while wearing his uniform and badge. Bretschneider also obtained confidential information about Devine’s finances through the performance ofhis duties as sheriff prior to the trust’s acquisition of her share of the property.

His interactions with Devine, specifically when he served her with the first formal notification of an eviction proceeding, are what led to the ethics commission investigation. According to the disposition agreement between Bretschneider and the ethics commission, his solicitations to Devine were “inherently exploitative” or “inherently coercive.”

“Bretschneider attempted to facilitate his private purchase of the property by pursuing the sale in the course of his official business with the cousin (Devine),” the ethics commission ruled. “This was particularly the case where the official business dealings involved Bretschneider arriving in an official vehicle in uniform and serving papers that began the eviction process. This was an inherently exploitable situation . . . He knew that the cousin would be particularly vulnerable because she was in financially difficult circumstances facing eviction.”

Marlene Devine said last year that Bretschneider first approached her and her sister, Denise Gomes, because he knew they would be the family members most likely to sell their shares due to personal issues.

“I think he carefully studied the people we are,” Devine said in 2006. “I’m a widow, and I’m struggling. We were the weakest links and he came to us first. You feel trapped – you feel like you have to sell.”

In late 2004, when Devine was still living on Cherry Street, she said Bretschneider approached her for the first time about selling her share while she was in the back yard of the property with her sister, Denise Gomes.

On May 13, 2005, a time when Devine was still refusing to sell her share, Bretschneider received confidential information about her financial difficulties when he served her with a 14-day notice to quit from her landlord, the first formal notification of an eviction proceeding, which stated that she owed a total of $7,500 in back rent. A notice to quit, a document that is traditionally served by the sheriff, is not considered a public record and was delivered to Devine by Bretschneider at her Cow Pond Lane apartment.

“After the notice to quit, I saw him quite a few times,” Devine said.

Days after the notice was served, the trust purchased the first of the 3 Cherry Street shares from Devine’s sister, Denise Gomes, and in November, the trust acquired Devine’s share for $50,000.

“In the end I had to (sell). I had no choice,” Devine said. “I sold out purposely to pay my back rent. I negotiated with him (Bretschneider) about the price, but he was firm. He was getting it for what he wanted. People were looking for the weakest links, and who were the weakest links? We were.”

The 3 Cherry St. property was assessed by the town last year at $782,200. For several months in 2005, it was listed by Sanford Real Estate for $975,000, although it has since been taken off the market.

Yumbob Realty Trust was established on May 24, 2005, when a declaration of trust was filed with the Registry of Deeds. A trust is a legal entity in which the actual ownership of property is separated from its legal ownership, according to the ethics commission. Realty trusts are a type of business generally organized for the purpose of buying, selling, holding or investing in real property.

The legal ownership of a trust is held by a trustee who performs certain duties for its beneficiaries. While the identity of a trustee is public record, the identities of the beneficiaries are generally hidden. In the case of Yumbob Realty Trust, island attorney Michael Wilson is listed as the sole trustee. When asked about the trust last year, Wilson would only confirm that he is a trustee and declined to comment further.

Since the Ethics Commission investigation began, Yumbob Realty Trust has not purchased any of the remaining shares of 3 Cherry Street, and the home remains uninhabited.

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